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Arabic Roots of the Scientific Revolution

Figure 1: Ibn al-Haytham (here Alhasen) sharing with Galileo the honour of holding up the title page of Hevelius' Selenographia, pub¬lished in 1647. Note the image of the brain on the plinth below Ibn al-Haytham. Image courtesy of the library of the Royal Society.

Figure 2: The title of the paper written in Latin by Edmund Halley on the observations of Al-Battani published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1693. Image courtesy of the library of the Royal Society.

Figure 3: Title page of Halley's translation of Apollonius's work from Arabic. Image courtesy of the library of the Royal Society.

Figure 4: Title page of the Arabic Taqwim al-Buldan of Abu al-Fida which was printed in Paris in 1829. Image courtesy of the library of the Royal Society.

Figure 5: Title page of Richard Mead's book in which he incorporated the work of Al-Razi and commented on it. Note Al-Razi's name on the title page. Image courtesy of the library of the Royal Society.

Figure 6: The title page of Thomas Hyde's publication of the star catalogue of Ulugh Beg and that of Al-Tizini. Image courtesy of the library of the Royal Society.

It is well known nowadays that modern Scientific Revolution benefited indirectly from the theories, results and inventions transmitted from the Arabic/Islamic scientific tradition during the Renaissance. The new element introduced by Dr Rim Turkmani who worked for many years on the original archives is that knowledge transfer didn't stop at the Renaissance. In the following original and well-documented article, Dr Turkmani shows that fellows of the Royal Society and scholars at Oxford and Cambridge were openly borrowing ideas and observations from the Middle East throughout the 17th century. Dr Turkmani transferred highlights from these documents and rare books into the Arabick Roots exhibition supported by FSTC and The Qatar Foundation and that was opened at the Royal Society on the 9th of June (see opening coverage here).